time? If any one of those philosophic critics will take the trouble to
listen to a few courses of sermons at the present day, and the remark
applies not less to protestant than to catholic churches, he will find
that instead of that '_parole morale et consolante_' which is so
soothing to think of, the pulpit is now the home of fervid controversy
and often exacerbated declamation in favour of ancient dogma against
modern science. We do not say whether this is or is not the wisest line
for the clergy to follow. We only press the fact against those who wish
us to believe that dogma counts for nothing in the popular faith, and
that therefore we need not be uneasy as to its effects.

Next, one would say to those who think that all will go well if you
divide the community into two classes, one privileged to use its own
mind, the other privileged to have its mind used by a priesthood, that
they overlook the momentous circumstance of these professional upholders
of dogmatic systems being also possessed of a vast social influence in
questions that naturally belong to another sphere. There is hardly a
single great controversy in modern politics, where the statesman does
not find himself in immediate contact with the real or supposed
interests, and with the active or passive sentiment, of one of these
religious systems. Therefore if the instructed or intellectually
privileged class cheerfully leave the field open to men who, _ex
hypothesi_, are presumed to be less instructed, narrower, more
impenetrable by reason, and the partisans of the letter against the
spirit, then this result follows. They are deliberately strengthening
the hands of the persons least fitted by judgment, experience, and
temper, for using such power rightly. And they are strengthening them
not merely in dealing with religious matters, but, what is of more
importance, in dealing with an endless variety of the gravest social and
political matters. It is impossible to map out the exact dimensions of